60 Miles, Cobra 5k and Hottest Half Marathon Recap.

I decided to do some back to back long-ish running this weekend (including 2 races!) so I started things off with 10 miles early Saturday. I got a good glimpse of the sunrise before heading out to race number 1…a 5k out in Lewisville.

So my run club was scheduled to do the Cobra Brewing 5k which started right around 9:30 a.m. I got there early, grabbed my race swag and lined up to the start. Nothing like running on some tired legs! My legs were a bit worn out from a strong week of higher mileage so I had no intention of a PR. But my friend Valerie told me she wanted to run under 25 minutes for a personal best so I decided to pace her a bit. I actually have never paced anyone for a 5k so it was kind of tough! Went out way to fast in the beginning but reigned it in and finished solid with a 24:35 time. Not bad for running 10 miles a couple of hours beforehand. 13.1 done for the day.

I got a sweet mug, some cerveza (totally not a beer gal but one of the concoctions I tried was decent!) and an age group win. Actually…Valerie, myself and Ben all took home 2nd in our perspective groups. Win win. Go team Irving Running Club.

After the run I took it pretty easy…had dinner with a girlfriend while we watched The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Hilarious stuff.

Sunday was The Hottest Half marathon day! I actually made a vow to myself after last year that I would NEVER run this race ever again. Well apparently I broke that vow after being peer pressured to run it for fun. HA. This race is always so brutally hot and such a beat down. It’s also usually where I run my worst half marathon times of the calendar year. So as you can imagine I was not super excited to run it but just in time we had a a nice cool down in temps that weekend. So it was around the 70s that morning climbing up to the 80s towards the finish. Not terrible but not amazing running weather either.

We started about 15 minutes late in typical Mellew fashion (the directors of the race). The course is fairly flat with one steep incline towards mile 11 or so. But I loved the views of the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge and we get a nice shot of the skyline on the Trinity Trail.

There’s also a nice little rocky/trail part that is unpaved which I didn’t love since it slowed my pace down a bit. I had to make up for lost time after we left that portion but for the most part my splits stayed within the 8/9 minute range. I was proud of myself for staying more consistent this time. And way faster than last year’s 2:18 finish. Praise baby Jesus.

Decent finish especially considering the fact that I ran so many miles this week! My body still felt really good and I attribute that to lots of cross training, massage therapy and TLC lately.

Post race yumminess…brunch at Ascension Coffee.

And lattes and mimosas for everyone! Heck yes.

13.1 number 29 is done! I guess I had better run one more half marathon before the end of this year so I can hit 30. Because, why not?

Oh and cheers to a 60 mile running week. I’m all fired up and ready to rock these next few weeks leading up to 26.2 number 21.

How was your weekend? Have you done a hot & or humid summer race this year?

My slowest Half was, instead of the hottest half, the Hypothermic Half in February. It was run on snow, in maybe -10 Celsius weather (not considered cold in this neck of the woods). I had a brutal race. Man, that was a long time ago!